


want to step into your great unknown

by pendules



Series: post-trk conversations [3]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Conversations, Fluff, M/M, The Raven King Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7100242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You're just as real," Ronan tells him, cracking his eyes open a fraction. Adam's still staring up at the sky, but there's a visible tension in the lines of his face. "Even without Cabeswater."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Cabeswater didn't make him stronger or bolder or <i>more</i>; it just cast those parts of him into even sharper relief.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"I felt most like <i>myself</i> when I was there," Adam admits. "Like I could let go of all the doubts and fears and unknowns and just be <i>me</i>."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"You can do that <i>here</i> too." He doesn't add <i>With me</i>. He knows it's understood.</i>
</p><p>Or: Adam and Ronan contemplate all the pieces of themselves and of each other in the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	want to step into your great unknown

**Author's Note:**

> Another one of my [post-trk conversations](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6811204/chapters/15552925) that got away from me. Reading those isn't necessary though. (I'm not saying this was partially inspired by that Ashlee Simpson song, but it kind of totally was.)

"It's strange. You're more _real_ here," Adam tells him thoughtfully one lazy afternoon while they're lying in a lush green field, using Ronan's stomach as a pillow. He figures the sun is making him mildly light-headed and loose-tongued. "Like you _belong_. Which paradoxically makes you seem even more dreamlike."

Ronan doesn't even bother opening his eyes, hands clasped behind his own head, his jacket folded under his neck, basking in the warmth of these first days of spring. It's not hot enough yet to be uncomfortable, just soothing and invigorating. "I'm not a dream." He says it with a certainty that is pleasing to his own ears. He's been questioning his own place in reality for so long that it's a hard habit to break.

"You're _half_ a dream," Adam points out, but it's just a statement of fact.

"Yeah, I _am_." 

"What does that even _mean_ , though?" He knows this is just Adam's supercomputer of a brain doing what it does best; it's never idle for long although he's finding more and more that there are stretches of time when he's perfectly content just quietly _being_ with him and the ceaseless whirring of his thoughts is almost imperceptible. He knows that he's accepted that Ronan is something neither of them can ever fully understand, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to _try_ anyway. Ronan's vaguely flattered by the interest at this point, even if it's purely academic. The mystery of _him_ isn't nearly as pressing a concern as it was not so long ago, especially not with Adam here like he _belongs_ too, not just in this half-dream, half-real place but _with him_ : his breath on Ronan's skin and Ronan's hands in his hair and their bodies unconsciously seeking each other, fitting against each other like they've always been doing this and like they're always starving for it at the same time.

He shrugs. "I don't know. Means I'm a fucking weirdo, if we didn't know that already."

"Shut up. You _are_ a fucking weirdo. But it has nothing to do with your dreams." Ronan can hear the smirk in his voice. 

Adam pauses, swallows and then says, quieter, like he's been working up to this, "That's not what I meant, though. It's just — it's like when we were in your dreams together — _Before_ , I mean. And we were the only things that were real. But it was still _your_ dream. I was just a tourist."

They haven't tried anything like that since Cabeswater sacrificed itself. Adam's slowly relearning what he's capable of without it, starting from scratch, essentially — he has all the knowledge now, the muscle memory, but he still has to craft the tools to make it work. It's frustrating sometimes, he knows, like there's a part of him that's gone dormant that he needs to reawaken. But he'll find it. The magic's always been there and it hasn't been lost. Just locked up for now. He just has to locate the key or make a new one. It takes practice. Ronan knows this better than anyone.

"You're just as real," Ronan tells him, cracking his eyes open a fraction. Adam's still staring up at the sky, but there's a visible tension in the lines of his face. "Even without Cabeswater."

Cabeswater didn't make him stronger or bolder or _more_ ; it just cast those parts of him into even sharper relief.

"I felt most like _myself_ when I was there," Adam admits. "Like I could let go of all the doubts and fears and unknowns and just be _me_."

"You can do that _here_ too." He doesn't add _With me_. He knows it's understood.

"It's weird — Every morning I wake up here, it feels like I'm still walking through one of your dreams."

"I always know you're not a dream," Ronan promises.

"How?" Adam says, genuinely curious, turning on to his side to look up at his face now, eyes narrowed.

"Because I couldn't come up with _you_ if I had a thousand years," he says earnestly, brushing some strands of dusty hair off his forehead.

Adam still looks dubious, though. "You came up with a whole goddamn magic forest, Lynch."

"That's — _different_." He exhales, flicks his gaze back up to a cloud that looks uncannily like a raven in flight, feeling suddenly exposed.

He doesn't know how to explain it, to tell him that no matter how vast or extraordinary a dream is, he could never truly be in awe of it — he can be confused by it, proud of it, and even love it, yes, but never surprised or wonderstruck or _worshipful_ — because it's a _part_ of him. Because he _knows_ it, intrinsically if not intellectually. Adam's familiar to him now, but he's still discovering new parts of him every day — unpredictable and unexpected and unprecedented — and he's hungry for all of it, for learning him all over again, for the parts of him he feels like he's always known, as sure and safe as home. It's like all of magic itself, boundless and incomprehensible and belonging to everyone and no one at the same time. Known and utterly unknown. It's knowing that reality will always be superior to a dream. It's _humanity_ and every wild, scary, thrilling possibility that entails. It's — being in love.

"How do you know?" Adam breathes out, like he needs a real answer from him.

"Because — because when I knew I dreamt Cabeswater, it was fucking _terrifying_. Because it made me feel more alone. More different. And when I met you, that was fucking terrifying too, but because it made me want to not be alone anymore. I wanted you to _know_ me."

"I still don't _know_ you, though." He's not wrong, entirely; Ronan figures they'll still be unearthing new pieces of each other and of themselves for a long time to come. He's looking forward to it. He knows why Adam's impatient, though, with his need to understand everything, to make sense of a world that really doesn't most of the time. It's not really about the knowledge but the control it affords him. Ronan knows they can't control what happens to them next much less the whims of the universe, but he knows there are still some things that are constant and everlasting.

"Yeah, you _do_. You know the parts that matter." He sees the core of him; he's never been distracted or dazzled by the various fronts he's put up for other people. He could always see through the lies he wore all over him like brittle armour.

"Sometimes I feel like I can't hide anything from you. And that's scary too."

"I know," Ronan sees, meeting his eyes firmly.

"I don't _want_ to, though," he sighs.

"I know."

He turns back to the wide, open expanse of sky above them, eyes far away, almost like when he's scrying.

"Sometimes I wonder if you're going to get bored of me now that I'm not the magician." It spills out of him like a confession, shameful, truthful. A fear he's tried to temper — that he can silence for most of their time together — but that still creeps its way upwards through the cracks like a weed that reemerges no matter how many times you pull it out. Ronan knows about those thoughts; he's felt them growing inside him the closer they get to envelopes in the mail and plane tickets and bad phone connections and holding each other a bit too tightly before letting go without saying a thing.

"Shut up, Parrish. You're _still_ the magician. Like I could ever get bored of you," he scoffs dismissively.

"It's not the _same_ , though. Yeah, I still have weird, psychic hunches sometimes but it doesn't come close to the power —"

"I don't _care_ about the power," Ronan says simply. "Maybe you'll get it back, maybe you won't. It's not _all_ you are. Even without it, I still —" _Want you here, need you, love every piece of you._ "You're still —" _Amazing, beautiful, you._

"I _miss_ it, you know," he says, and Ronan can hear the undisguised yearning in his voice. "I mean — it's probably stupid and senseless and it wasn't ever really _mine_ but — It made me feel _good_."

"It was _always_ yours," Ronan assures him. "It was always inside of you. And it always will be."

"Easier said than done."

"Hey, we have time now. For all of it — for everything." He reaches down and takes Adam's hand where it's lying on his chest. He's going to help him in any way he can. He's going to share it with him: the Barns and his dreams and himself. He's going to spend as long as it takes to make sure his new Cabeswater's perfect. He's going to let him go when the time comes knowing he's always going to have a home right here. Knowing that Ronan's always going to be _his_. With or without magic. This isn't a dream. They're both real and they _chose_ each other.

"Yeah," Adam says, lacing his fingers through Ronan's. "We have time."


End file.
